Why You Should Get Customer Feedback for Your Restaurant

Customer feedback is a great way to stay on top of the overall pulse of your restaurant. Knowing whether your customers are satisfied or if there are areas in which you can improve can be pivotal to the ongoing success or your restaurant or bar.

There are many ways to solicit feedback from guests. For example, you can add a QR code to tables or customer receipts that take folks directly to the review channel of your choice. You can reach out to patrons who opt in via text or email, or even create social media contests that offer incentives for reviews.

Here are three tips for getting the most out of customer feedback.

Claim and monitor listings and pages online

Are you regularly monitoring your Google, Yelp, and Trip Advisor reviews? It’s critical to ensure proper access to your brand’s pages. Once you have your pages claimed, filled out, and optimized, monitor these sites on a regular basis. Set up alerts as needed or monitor through a restaurant software with review monitoring integrated. All your new reviews will come into a single inbox and the process for managing them will be more streamlined.

Once the positive reviews start flowing in, leverage them for marketing. Display stand-out reviews in social media posts and/or digital menus. This is a great way to let other people’s words do your marketing for you! There’s a level of authenticity that comes from people getting recommendations from peers rather than a business itself.

Ask for feedback on an ongoing basis

To ensure feedback you receive is fresh and timely, request it on a regular basis. This can provide pivotal intel on aspects like which employees are thriving and which could improve, which menu items are popular, which are divisive, etc.

One operational benefit is that you can use positive feedback to motivate employees. For example, create an employee of the month program and highlight the team member that’s mentioned most that month. Employees will take pride in knowing they were singled out by customers.

How can you ask for feedback? There are a lot of options. In addition to QR codes, emails, or texts, you can also add a feedback form to your website, include a question in your POS system, or provide physical cards with reminders.

Use the intel you collect to motivate employees, update menu items, and other ways to benefit your business. Thankfully, digital menu boards are incredibly easy and quick to update if you need to re-add a fan favorite.

Build a loyal base on social media

Nearly everyone today is on social media. Food photos are a particularly informative genre on visually geared sites like Instagram. In addition to posting yourself, keep an eye on photos of the food or drinks your customers are sharing on their own channels. Check who tags you, who used your hashtag, who checks into your location, etc. These are built-in brand advocates.

When appropriate, ask users if you can re-share their photos and give them a shoutout. Most will welcome the opportunity. This alludes back to your customers doing your marketing for you and people being able to trust others.

Integrate positive feedback and social media content into marketing initiatives centered around your consumers. We recommend building a community around your brand; this makes people feel like they’re a part of something. It also helps humanize the brand and makes it more approachable.

Conclusion

Online reviews provide a unique opportunity to tap directly into the minds of your customers. By regularly asking for feedback and staying on top of online review and social sites, your business will improve.